Kai
Chapter twenty-one
The Price of Magic
My arm throbbed all night, heat radiating from the old wound like it was trying to warn me.
By morning, I’d dug out two claws, long, jagged, and serrated along the edges.
The same claws that tore into my flesh when I was a boy, now breaking through my skin all over again. It hurt like hell. But it was worth it.
I placed them in a small glass container and stashed them inside the captain’s quarters, above our bed, in the drawer only I open.
These claws are more than just remnants of a scar.
They’re one of the biggest, most important pieces to everything.
I don’t know if more will emerge, but for now, we have two.
That’s two wishes. One for Mira. One for me.
I’d like to give her both, but now, with death breathing down my neck, my wish has to be to save myself, to rip out whatever curse that siren left in me.
Whatever this black poison is that’s crawling through my veins, it’s eating me alive, making me weaker by the day.
The pain lingers longer each time, like it’s learning how to stay.
Saving myself means saving Mira too. Like Veyra said, there’s no one without the other.
Siren’s Cove has never been discovered by a mortal man.
Only one warlock ever made it there, and he never returned to the sea.
He lives in self-exile now, tucked deep in the Badlands, where even the tide won’t touch him.
The entire island is his. Cursed, some say.
Anyone who steps foot on that land dies screaming.
Whatever he saw in those waters scared him so badly he refused to go near the ocean again. Won’t even dip a toe in.
I can’t imagine what their home looks like. Sirens slithering like sea snakes through coral caverns, guarding eggs and secrets older than time. The idea of it makes my skin crawl. A place that evil, that primeval, it’s not just dangerous. It’s unnatural, unholy.
Mira mentioned she wanted to visit Taika, an old witch friend of hers who gave her the map that led her straight to me.
Though Taika isn’t just any witch. She’s the most powerful in the world.
If anyone can point us in the right direction or help me understand what the hell is happening to my magic, it’s her.
Speaking to a witch as old as she is, one who’s lived through countless tides and curses…
that kind of knowledge is priceless. Rare. Dangerous, too.
But before we leave, there’s something I’ve been avoiding. It’s time I check on my father.
I’ve had members of the crew taking shifts watching over him, though I doubt he even notices anymore.
Most days, he doesn’t know who’s speaking to him.
Sometimes he doesn’t even remember his own name.
Watching him like this, weak, slumped, muttering nonsense under his breath, is like staring into a ghost of the man I once feared.
Once, he ruled these seas, feared and respected.
He was a pirate legend, my blood, my example, and my warning.
Now he’s nothing but a broken shell of a man.
His illness wasn’t a matter of chance. It was a curse, one he brought upon himself.
He made a pact with the devil, and the devil collected.
Maybe that’s why I’ve kept my distance. Not out of fear.
But because deep down, I wonder if I’m next.
He only gets a few minutes of clarity each month.
He’s locked away in a tiny room, guarded at all times.
The door locks from the outside, but I placed a fake lock on the inside so he thinks he still has a shred of power left.
During those rare, lucid moments, Mira can’t be anywhere near him.
He still wants her dead. Wants to wipe out her bloodline entirely.
If he knew she was on board, if he knew what I’ve been doing with her, with our ship, he’d have my head.
But I’m not him. I have someone to live for. I’ll fight for her. Breathe for her. Kill for her. My father let my mother slip through his fingers, ruined whatever they had for the sake of power. He never even told me who she was. Just another secret buried under his madness. Selfish prick.
I take a breath and step inside. “Father,” I say quietly as I enter his quarters.
The room is small, but not suffocating. There’s a narrow bed pushed up against the wall, and a desk cluttered with half-finished maps, old ink bottles, and scribbled nonsense.
The only thing that feels alive in here is the window, his view of the sea. The one thing he still loves.
He’s seated on the bed, eyes fixed on the waves beyond the glass. Then, slowly, he turns to me. “Son,” he says. “You’ve finally come to pay your old man a visit.” Of course. He’s lucid. Lucky me.
His eyes are dark brown, shadowed by heavy wrinkles.
His long white hair is tied back with a faded blue bandana, the same kind he used to wear when he was feared across every corner of the ocean.
He stands when he sees me. Still around my height, though age has curled his spine.
His presence feels too big for this room, like it might collapse the walls.
“You alright?” I ask, voice low, as I lean against the stairway just above his quarters. I keep my distance. He's like a rogue bomb… You never know when it'll blow up. The more space between us, the better.
He scoffs, not even looking at me. “What does it look like? I’m fucking sick in the head.” His tone is wild, somewhere between manic and bitter. Then his eyes snap toward mine, seething. “And you know what has my blood boiling more than anything?”
I steel myself. “What’s that?”
“You brought that bitch of a daughter onto my ship. Bleu’s daughter.” I’m on him in two steps. My fist knots in his collar and I slam him back against the wall, hard enough to rattle the desk behind him. My grip tightens, choking him slightly.
“Never call her that,” I snarl. “The only bitch on this ship is you.” He spits in my face. I don’t flinch, but the heat coming off my skin is near volcanic. Magic pulses at my fingertips, itching to lash out, to burn something. I drop him. “Who told you?” I stare down at him.
“Why would I give away any of my secrets to you?” he coughs out. He crumples to his knees, coughing, hands trembling with rage or weakness. “If you don’t get her off this ship,” he wheezes, “I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” I cut in, stepping closer.
“You’ll kill her? Threaten her again and I’ll drop your sorry ass at the next port.
Let’s see how long a sick old man lasts out there.
” His eyes shift, landing on the sea outside the window.
It’s the only thing that calms him. But this time, even that doesn’t work.
“You’d choose her over your own blood?” he growls.
I crouch down, meeting his gaze, my voice low and dangerous. “I will always choose her,” I say. “I will kill for her. Especially my own blood.”
He recoils in disgust—not at my words, but at me. Because the woman he hates more than anything, the daughter of his greatest enemy, is the one whose soul is now tied to mine. And he’ll never understand how vital she is. Not just to the ocean, but to me.
“This isn’t your ship anymore,” I growl.
“It’s mine. You lost her the moment you made a deal with the devil.
And when I slayed the Kraken.” He stays on his knees, staring at his hands like they’re strangers.
Good. Let him sit in that silence. I feel nothing for the man in front of me.
Years and years of abuse have boiled down to the abuser on his knees, broken and small.
Everything he did in life was for himself. Gold. Power. Pleasure. He was a slave to temptation, bedding every whore who crossed his path, drowning in rum, leaving wreckage behind like it was his calling card. A disease wearing a pirate’s skin.
But I won’t lie, he was damn good. Ruthless, heartless, one of the best to ever haunt the seas.
As a father? He was the worst. He beat me as a child—not even a few years old.
He wanted me to be so many things from the moment I was born.
Strong, but never stronger than him. Powerful, but always beneath his shadow.
He saw it early on, that I’d outshine him one day. And his jealousy cost him a son.
“Remember who made you, boy,” he croaks, his voice cracked from the strain of my grip. He hauls himself up, leaning on the chair for balance. The fire still burns behind his eyes, but his body is crumbling beneath it. I meet his stare, calm and cold.
“You didn’t make anything,” I spit. “You were too busy chasing your next fix.” I take a step forward.
He doesn’t move. “The crew shaped me. I made me. Every scar, every battle, every brutal lesson, I survived it. Not because of you. But in spite of you.” I lean in, my voice dropping.
“My mother gave me more than you ever did. And she wasn’t even there.
” He flinches. “Her magic made me powerful before I could even walk. And you’ve spent your whole life running from what I was born to become. ”
He shoots me a sharp look of disgust. “Don’t speak of your mother to me.”
“Why?” I snap. “Because you don’t even know who she is? I was just dropped off on this ship, and you decided you needed an heir. You realized I had magic, so you kept me. And threw her away.”
His expression shifts. For a moment, there's a flicker of pain in his eyes. Real pain. I’ve never seen it before. “I do know who she is, Kai,” he says quietly. “I loved that woman. But she chose power over you. Over us.”
His voice cracks. “I was a shit father, I know that. But at least you were cared for. She left you. She left me.” He pauses, staring past me like he's chasing ghosts. “I never loved another after her. She was my one and only.”
I’m stunned. My father has never spoken to me about her, not once. Whenever I tried to find a lead on who she was, all tracks were covered. Even the crew doesn’t know anything about her, like some hidden mind control. “What kind of power did she possess?” I ask quietly.
“She’s a witch, son. A powerful one,” he said, voice low. “That’s where your magic comes from. All magic comes with a price. Why do you think I’m sick? Who do you think I made a deal with?”
Horror twists in my gut. Bile rises in my throat. “She did this to you?”
He shakes his head and steps toward me. “I did this to myself. I made a deal with the devil. All magic comes with a price.” Then, just like that, his clarity snaps.
His eyes shift. The awareness drains from them, replaced by anger. Wild. Unhinged. His short-lived lucid moment is over.
I wanted to ask him more. What deal did he make? What bargain could turn a man into this? Trapped between death and life, a fate worse than either.
“We have to sail north! Get him out of my way, move him! That bastard’s always causing problems. North!” Pacing back and forth, arms flailing, his voice rises into gibberish. He’s completely forgotten I’m there.
I exhale slowly and reached for my magic, slipping into his mind just enough to soothe him, redirecting his wild thoughts to stillness. It takes effort, but eventually, he calms. I guide him back to his bed. He collapses into it, fast asleep and breathing steady.
I stand over him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. The man who once ruled the sea, now a prisoner of his own madness. So many things have gone wrong in his life. He deserved most of it, but maybe not all.
I step out, locking the door behind me. The mighty have fallen, I think grimly. And now, we have a snake on this ship. Because whoever told my father that Mira was on board will live to regret it.